Old Ghosts
by Swellison
Summary: Sam and Dean take on the ghost at historic Windsor Ruins. Set in season 2, directly after No Exit.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story takes place right after No Exit, in season 2. The location is real, the ghost—who knows?? Originally published in Rooftop Confessions #2, edited by GriffinSong Press.

Old Ghosts

by Swellison

The last chords of Ted Nugent's _Cat Scratch Fever_ cassette faded into squeaky silence. Sam watched from the passenger seat as Dean's right hand hit the eject button while they continued to drive down the highway. He dropped the discarded cassette into the box of tapes—Dean's mullet rock collection—which Sam held open on his lap. Without taking his eyes off the road, Dean dipped into the tape box. Grasping a cased tape with his right hand, he single-handedly flipped it open, extracted the tape and slipped it into the cassette player. Sam couldn't decide if Dean had memorized his tapes by their location in the box, or if he didn't care which tape he blared at any particular time; he supposed that they were all good, to Dean's way of thinking.

Idly picking up the Nugent tape and slipping it back into its case, Sam wondered when he would be driving the Impala next, so they could listen to his choice of music. As he placed the cassette back in its slot, he glanced at his right arm, still casted from the base of his thumb to almost his elbow; and he realized it wouldn't be any time soon. Dean had made it crystal clear that only people with two "one hundred percent functioning" good arms got to drive his baby. "So, we're not going to Cali, then?"

Foreigner's opening chords to _Feels Like the First Time_ drowned Dean's "Huh" out.

"Not rescuing Katie Holmes from that cult in LA?" Sam repeated Dean's days-old joke, wanting to get a reaction out of his older brother. Dean hadn't said a word since they'd left the Roadhouse a couple of hours ago, after dropping off Ellen and Jo. Following an aborted conversation with Jo, Dean had stalked back to the Impala, barely giving Sam time to jump off the hood and into the passenger seat before he took off in a cloud of dust, heading—Sam had no idea where.

"No."

Sam lowered the volume on the cassette, risking Dean's ire. "So where are we going?"

"East."

Sam tapped his finger on the window, pointing to the I-80 East marker they were passing on the highway. "I can see that, but where?" Dean turned his head long enough to aim a glare at Sam, then turned his attention back to watching the road. After a few miles of listening to Foreigner, Sam tried again. "So, ah, did Ash give you a new job?"

Dean bristled. "Since when do we rely on _them_ for our hunts, anyway? Yeah, we were working with Jo in Philly, and Ash supplied her with that list of executed prisoners, but you could've done the research yourself. Hell, I could've done the research."

Sam leapt at the mention of Jo. "Speaking of Jo, what happened between you two back at the Roadhouse?"

Dean frowned and his grip on the Impala's steering wheel tightened. "She told me about her father's last hunt. Said he had a partner and the guy got him killed." He paused, and then continued in a flat voice, "She said his partner was Dad."

"Dad?" Sam echoed, disbelievingly. One look at Dean's face told him that Dean was done talking about this. Sam gazed out the window at the passing roadside, lost in thought. _Okay, so that hunt must've happened a long time ago_—_fifteen or so years ago? And there's definitely a learning curve associated with being a hunter,__so Dad could've made a mistake, even a fatal one. But Dad was the best hunter I know . . . _It was his own worst nightmare that hadn't already happened; screwing up on a hunt and getting Dean killed. _Not gonna happen, _Sam told himself firmly. But he was shaken by the fact that it already had happened, to his dad, no less. Sam tuned out his thoughts and listened to Dean's music instead, the cassette had progressed to _Long, Long Way from Home_.

_How_ _apropos. Except Dean and the Impala __are__ home. I thought_—_I hoped_—_we were getting back closer to normal_—_well, Winchester normal, the last couple of hunts. _Dad's death still loomed large in both their hearts and minds, but . . . He sighed. _One step forward, two steps back. _

"Your wrist hurtin' again?" Dean had heard his sigh and misinterpreted it. "I can pull over and get a pillow from the back."

"Nah, don't bother. I can wait 'til we stop for food."

Not surprisingly, Dean pulled into the next exit offering a restaurant selection. They settled on Bob Evans, standard American fare, several cuts above McDonald's and a nice, comfortable booth to relax in while they ate. Afterwards, Dean dug out a pillow and watched while Sam placed it on his lap and eased his right arm with its heavy cast on top of the pillow.

They resumed driving, and things got back to normal with occasional insignificant conversation interspersed between long bouts of music. They called it quits when they reached the outskirts of Indianapolis, pulling over at a Super 8 Motel off of I-465. Dean hustled them inside quickly, and stopped in his tracks as he closed the motel room door behind him. The room was a racing fan's dream, from the matching fire engine red bedspreads with white racing stripes to the black and white checkered border that outlined the ceiling and two large, vintage photographs of race cars lined up at the starting line, positioned over each queen-sized bed. "Oh yeah, we're in Indy, all right."

Sam's smile was interrupted by a huge yawn and he glanced sheepishly at the clock: not even 10 P.M.

"Get some shut-eye," Dean ordered kindly. "Unless you want to shower first?"

Sam considered it; but he didn't want to mess with finding the garbage bags and wrapping his cast to keep it from getting wet. "Nah, I'll shower in the morning." He grabbed his shaving kit and a pair of pajama bottoms from his duffel and disappeared into the bathroom. Ablutions completed, he emerged a few minutes later, dressed for bed.

Dean had set up the laptop on the room's table and sat in front of it, face slightly illuminated by the monitor's glow. "I'm gonna find our next hunt while you get caught up on your beauty sleep."

Ignoring him, Sam got under the covers of the bed located farther from the door and switched off the bedside lamp. He fell asleep to the quiet clatter of Dean's typing on the laptop's keyboard.

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Sam opened his eyes to the unusual sight of an already-dressed Dean searching through Sam's duffel. Before Sam could say anything about that invasion of his privacy, Dean had pulled out the roll of kitchen-can garbage bags and a few hot pink rubber bands. Oh.

"'Bout time you got up, Sleepyhead. Let's get your cast wrapped so you can take a shower while I go hunt up some breakfast."

Sam agreed with the agenda, extending his broken right arm. He watched as Dean quickly and smoothly waterproofed his cast, suddenly wondering if Dean had had previous experience dealing with this kind of injury. He remembered Dean's one-handed maneuvering of the cassette tapes yesterday. He'd put it down to a skill Dean had acquired while driving solo, now he wondered if Dean had once been similarly injured. He couldn't recall Dean's wrist being broken during a hunt, but Sam's knowledge of his brother's hunts had a four-year gap in it.

"Okay, you're ready to hit the shower. I even saved you some hot water." Dean patted the wrapped cast and stepped away from Sam's bed.

"Thanks." Sam headed for the bathroom, as Dean crossed the room and left in pursuit of breakfast.

Twenty minutes later, Sam was dressed and pacing the motel room, restlessly waiting for Dean to get back with breakfast. Sam stopped at the table, noticing a thin stack of paper next to the closed laptop and handy portable printer. It seemed Dean had found their next hunt, as promised. Sam sat down and scanned the first sheet of paper. It was directions and a map to Port Gibson, Mississippi, courtesy of Mapquest. Sam noted that the estimated driving time was over eleven hours, and then turned to the next page. He finished skimming the pages, restacked them and frowned, tapping his finger on the table.

Just then, he heard the door being unlocked and Dean came in, holding a cardboard carrier with two lidded cups of juice and a white bag with the Jack In the Box logo. "Man, everyone wanted to eat at the same time," he grumbled. "I finally gave up on the drive-thru and walked in. Should've gotten a room at one of those breakfast-included motels." He inhaled, and then shook his head. "What, no coffee? Falling down on the job," he teased, setting the food on the table.

"I'll make it," Sam offered, starting to rise. Since this had been just an overnight stopover, they didn't get their usual 'base of operations' room, which included a kitchenette, and Sam had overlooked the automatic coffee maker set up in the bathroom.

"No, stay put. I've got it." Dean crossed to the bathroom and removed the coffee pot from the coffee maker on the bathroom counter. He gave it a quick pre-wash, then set about making the coffee. When he returned to the table, Sam had placed two wrapped sausage, egg and biscuit sandwiches, hash browns, orange juice and a napkin in front of the empty chair opposite him. As Dean sat down, Sam unwrapped his own Sourdough breakfast Jack and dug in.

They ate in silence, Dean rising half-way through his first sandwich to return with two steaming cups of fresh coffee.

"So," Sam said a few minutes later, after drinking the last of his coffee, "I see you found our next hunt." He pointed at the stack of paper.

"Yeah."

"So we're going after the ghost at Windsor Ruins?" Sam knew his brother caught the off-note in his voice.

"You have a problem with that?"

"It's an old ghost. I read the eye-witness accounts you printed off. It doesn't seem to hurt anyone, just wanders around."

"And how long is that going to last? Did you read the latest sightings? It's started chasing after people with a knife. Next thing you know, it'll be slashing people, instead of air. It's a ghost, Sam, pure and simple. No nice vampires or super-strong zombie girls to complicate things. I thought you'd appreciate a straight-forward salt and burn."

"It's a tourist attraction. I'm not sure the town will appreciate it." Sam took a deep breath. "Look, gimme a couple of hours to surf and I'll see if I can find a hunt here in Indiana."

His offer unwittingly pushed one of Dean's control freak buttons. "Damn it, Sam! Do you have to fight me on everything?"

Sam froze. He could tell by the expression on Dean's face that his brother was hearing the same thing he was. Dad's words from the hospital ghosted through the still room: "_Can we not fight? Half the time we're fighting, I don't know what we're fighting about."_

Dean's expression smoothed out into his game face and he rose from the table. "I'll go check us out," he said flatly. "We're leaving for Mississippi in half an hour."

Sam rose from the table. _Great. Eleven hours in the Impala with Dean in a bad mood. I'm so looking forward to it. _

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Port Gibson was a sleepy Southern town, long on history and short on population. Its only accommodations for visitors were a few bed & breakfast establishments which Dean deemed too small to risk using scammed credit cards. So their base of operations was a motel room in Vicksburg, twenty-some miles north. After settling into their room, they took off for their hunt location.

Sam was beginning to doubt even Dean's well-honed sense of direction as they drove down a seemingly endless two-lane road, until they spotted the tiny sign pointing to Windsor Ruins. Dean turned down the indicated dirt road and finally pulled the Impala into a narrow gravel driveway in front of the ruins. They were the only tourists at the site, mid-November not being prime tourist season, especially for this out-of-the-way historical landmark.

They got out of the Impala and gawked, or at least Sam did. The small pictures of a few of the gray Greek Revival columns posted on the web didn't do justice to the real ruins of the burned-down plantation. Twenty-three Greek columns, spaced several yards apart, outlined a huge rectangular expanse of cleared land. Sam recalled from his reading that the tall columns were 45 feet in height. Some of the columns had huge gouges about a third and two-thirds of the way down from their elaborately carved iron tops, showing where the elaborate antebellum mansion's second and third floors had been. The remains of the third floor ornamental iron balustrade still connected several of the front columns in mid-air.

Sam hauled out his cell phone and snapped a few pictures of the columns while Dean prowled the ruined mansion's perimeter, for now heeding the posted warning: "DANGER RUINS UNSTABLE KEEP OUT." As Dean rejoined him at the front of the ruins, Sam commented, "It must've been magnificent."

"Yeah. Well, there are obviously no Civil War ghosts here now, so we'll have to come back tonight."

"Windsor survived the Civil War. It caught fire and burned to the ground in 1890, after a guest supposedly left a cigar burning on the third floor balcony. Why are you so sure that the ghost haunting the ruins is from the Civil War?" Sam asked.

"You read the same stuff I read, Sam. The place was used by both the North and the South back during the Civil War. After the Union overran the Confederate army, they used it as a field hospital."

"I took a course on the Civil War at Stanford," Sam said. He saw Dean stiffen. "The professor went around the class and asked everybody which side of the war their ancestors were on. I lied and told him my family immigrated later in the 19th Century. Truth is, I don't know which side the Winchesters fought on in the Civil War—or much of anything else. As far as Dad was concerned, the family history begins and ends with the Yellow-Eyed Demon_." _

"It was a pretty watershed event," Dean defended, and then shifted uncomfortably. "Sheesh, Sammy, what brought this on?"

"The ruins, I guess. There's such a pervading sense of history and loss here. Can't you feel it?"

"No, but I'm not a psychic like you are." Dean punched Sam's arm. "Which is why I fully expect to see the ghost when we come back tonight. You're like a neon sign to the supernatural."

"And that makes me feel so much better," Sam grumbled.

Dean started walking back towards the Impala, Sam following after a last glance at the silent, towering columns. "Cheer up, Sammy, we're spending the rest of the day doing what you like best: research." While Dean had gathered a fair amount of information from the net, they wanted to augment their information with more traditional sources of knowledge. Sam would immerse himself in the library at Alcorn State, the nearest university, while Dean would check out the area museums and historical sites, and with luck, talk to a local history buff or two.

They drove down the narrow dirt road back to the two-lane, then turned left. About a half mile later, they rounded a slight curve in the road and came across an amazing expanse of vegetation-gone-wild. Dean pulled off to the side of the road. "What is that?"

"I don't know." Sam frowned; something was tickling the back of his mind. He got out of the Impala and approached the strange, dense ground cover that started only a few feet from the road. He bent over and stared at the closest vine's three-pronged leaves, reaching out to gently stroke one. "Hairy trifoliate leaves," he muttered, still trying to pin down his memory. He heard Dean traipse up behind him and rose to his feet. "Dean, this is kudzu. I did a science project on it in ninth grade, the year we were in Arkansas."

"Kudzu?" Dean waved his hand at the huge, misshapen mounds of tightly vine-covered vegetation that stretched back from the road, ringed by a bush-level wall of the somehow slimy-looking plant. Some of the vine-covered shapes rivaled the Windsor columns in height. "All this?"

"Kudzu's another one of government's environmental backfires - like jackrabbits in Australia. It's extremely rapid-growing, can grow up to 60 feet a year. It was brought to the US from Japan in 1876 as a soil cover, and the government encouraged people to plant it, to prevent erosion." Sam's near-photographic memory supplied the details from his long-ago project. "It's now classified as an infestation, and it's very hard to get rid of, especially where it's entrenched, like here. Kudzu likes the growing conditions here in the southeast, and there are about two million acres of it running rampant. This is just a few acres of the stuff."

"Weird—but then, so are you, for knowin' all that stuff." Dean shook his head. "C'mon, Sammy, let's get back to our ghost research." As he walked back to the car, Sam heard him mutter, "Something normal."

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	2. Chapter 2 A Hunting we Will Go

"So, College-Boy, did'ya find out anything new?" Dean asked as he picked up his fifth piece of pizza from the box.

_Nothing like a good ol' ultimate pizza to fuel up on before a hunt, _Sam thought, contentedly munching on his last piece of pizza. They were eating at the kitchenette's table in their Vicksburg motel room, decorated in a Civil War theme. Finished chewing, he took a swig of Coke, then set the can down. "Most of what I've got agrees with your internet stuff. The most likely ghost is one of the Confederate soldiers in those six unmarked graves less than a mile from the Windsor ruins."

"They're still unmarked? I mean, people've known for decades that those guys are Confederate soldiers. No historical society's tried to put up headstones or anything?"

"Well, conventional thinking is that most of the Confederate casualties were from the Battle of Port Gibson, in early May 1863. After the battle was over, the townspeople buried the Confederate dead left on the battlefield in Wintergreen Cemetery, in Port Gibson. There's even a section for them, named Soldier's Row. An archeological project was instigated in 1985 to identify the remains and get proper markers for all the soldiers whose identities were established."

"So," Dean said, "For whatever reason, these six soldiers weren't buried in Soldier's Row. Maybe they didn't die on the battlefield, or at least not right away?"

Sam nodded. "That's true for some of them, anyway. Remember you said the Union used Windsor as a field hospital? Some of the patients were captured Confederate soldiers." Sam reached into his jeans pocket for the small notebook that he'd used to record the more interesting points of his research. "Two Confederate soldiers died in the hospital at Windsor, shortly after the Battle of Port Gibson—a Corporal Caleb Browne and a Sergeant Edmond Phileas. The Union forces also found two dead Confederate soldiers on the plantation when they swept it, and buried them with Browne and Phileas. I couldn't find any specific mention of the other two soldiers, other than the commonly-held belief that six soldiers are buried in those unmarked graves."

"Well, it was wartime—and they were buried by the enemy. I can see where the Union Army wouldn't put a lot of effort into properly burying and naming the bodies."

"But that's just wrong, Dean." Sam shook his head. "You should respect the dead, if at all possible—Dad taught us that." He saw Dean flinch at the mention of their father and sighed. "I've been digging up info on dead soldiers all afternoon, so yeah, Dad's been on my mind a lot, today." He hesitated, uncertain how Dean would react to his next words. "And—Grandma and Grandpa Winchester, too."

Dean's hand slapped the table so hard the soft drink cans jumped. "Grandma and Grandpa Winchester?" He almost spat out the words. "Why on earth are you thinking about them?"

Seeing his brother's blazing green eyes, Sam realized he'd stepped into an even bigger hornet's nest than a few days ago in Indianapolis, although he had no idea how. "Reading about all those casualties… The Civil War—brother against brother, families torn apart. I suddenly realized . . . they don't even know Dad's dead. They're Dad's parents; they deserve to know he's dead."

"No." Dean's voice was glacial. "They don't deserve anything."

"But they're family," Sam protested.

"They're relatives," Dean said. "There's a difference."

Sam just couldn't let it drop there. "Dean, what if Dad had died three years ago, while I was at Stanford? Would you have told me?"

Dean leaped from the table with a force that sent his chair backwards. In two steps, he was at Sam's side of the table, leaning on his braced palms, right in Sam's face. "That is, without a doubt, the stupidest thing you've ever asked me!" He growled, voice low and tight. "I came looking for you when he was just missing." Then Dean yanked his arms from the table and stepped back. He stomped over to the door, jerked it open and slammed it shut behind him.

Sam stared at the closed door. _Way to go, Sam. You've now got Dean wound tighter than he was when we were chasing Angela's zombie. And we're supposed to go hunting tonight? _He rose from the table, mechanically tossed the Coke cans and empty pizza box in the trash and wiped down the table. Then he settled on the interior bed and clicked on the television, mindlessly watching CNN.

Fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Dean walked in, carrying the weapons duffel and an old sheet. Ignoring Sam, he sat Indian-style on his bed, spreading the sheet in front of him. He then unzipped the duffel and extracted two shotguns and the weapons cleaning kit. Wordlessly, he began cleaning the first shotgun.

Sam waited a good twenty minutes before venturing to speak. "Dean, I'm sorry. I just thought—"

"Enough with the thinking, all right?" Dean interrupted wearily. "Just drop it."

"All right. Are we okay?" Sam's thoughts flashed back to Bobby's junkyard: _"I'm not okay, and neither are you."_

"Yeah, Sam. We're okay."

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Dean rolled the Impala to a stop at the far edge of the driveway in front of Windsor Ruins. He and Sam exited the car, stopping at the trunk to grab shotguns, extra rounds of rock salt that were stuffed in their jacket pockets, and Sam grabbed the duffel with its small can of gasoline and ever-useful rock salt.

They walked over to the front columns, then separated. Dean stepped over the low fence, blatantly ignoring the 'keep out' sign, and strolled towards the columns in the near right corner. He leaned his left shoulder nonchalantly against the second column on the side, letting the shotgun rest in the crook of his arm, and settled in for what might be a long wait.

Sam eyed the warning about the instability of the ruins, then shrugged. _They've been standing for well over a century; I doubt they'll pick tonight to keel over._ He, too, stepped over the fence and positioned himself next to one of the columns lining the opposite side of the cleared space from Dean. There weren't too many things that made Sam feel small, but these columns sure did, hell, even their bases were taller than he was. The half-moon cast a silver tinge on the columns, making the ruins seem even more otherworldly than they were in the daytime. Sam sighed, hoping that they didn't have a long night of waiting ahead of them.

Sometimes, they'd text message back and forth while they were in waiting mode on a hunt, but he knew Dean wasn't in a communicative mood tonight. They'd only spoken about the hunt on the drive from Vicksburg, Dean outlining the goal of tonight's stakeout. If the ghost showed up, Dean was hoping it would lead them back to its gravesite; that way they'd know which of the six graves they needed to dig up. Otherwise, they'd have to dig up all the unmarked graves, and salt and burn six sets of bones - a tall order, even for two Winchesters. Besides, Sam hated the idea of salting and burning the remains of five innocents, just to lay the one spirit to rest.

Sam cradled the shotgun's stock in his right hand, feeling the shotgun resting against his cast and shoulder. The Mississippi night wasn't anywhere near freezing --the radio had said it was forty-five degrees, with a sixty percent chance of rain--and his brown jacket kept him warm and cozy. Upon hearing the rain chances, Dean had elected to wear his clothjacket, warm enough and waterproof.

Almost two hours passed without incident. Sam stirred restlessly, then tensed, catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. A pale gray form was walking—floating?—through two of the back columns, slowly approaching him. _Damn, I really am a magnet for the spirit world. _Sam carefully lowered his shotgun into shooting position, tracking the spirit soldier.

He let it get within fifteen feet of him before slowly raising the shotgun and pressing the trigger. Per Dean's earlier instructions, he aimed an inch or so to the left of the apparition, not wanting it to disperse upon contact with the rock salt round. The ghost picked up its pace, gliding past Sam, heading for the front columns. It passed through them, then kept running through the lawn, Dean chasing after it. Sam fell in behind Dean, watching as the ghost reached the end of the driveway and ran onto the dirt road leading back to the two-lane highway. _Damn, _Sam marveled. _This is going to work; it's heading for the unmarked graves. _

Upon reaching the highway, the ghost turned left, Dean trailing it by a few yards and Sam lagging behind Dean. Sam wondered what a passing vehicle would make of the spectacle of the three of them, running down the side of the road in the moonlight. They rounded a curve and the ghost suddenly ceased following the road, heading straight into the tangled kudzu that had caught the Winchesters' attention earlier that day.

Dean chased after the ghost, hopping over the low kudzu-covered wall, following a narrow path between several towering mounds of vegetation. Sam slowed somewhat, not liking the change of direction; the unmarked graves were another quarter of a mile up the road. _Why did the ghost run here? _He felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. _I've got a bad feeling about this._

Sam raised his shotgun to firing position, noting uneasily that he'd lost sight of both Dean and the ghost. He leaped over the low kudzu wall and slipped between two towering columns of kudzu down a narrow path exposed by the moonlight. "Dean?"

He heard rustling up ahead and slightly to his right, and felt the kudzu vines brush against his left side as he passed by. The tall outgrowths of kudzu blocked out the moonlight and it was noticeably darker as Sam walked through the vegetation-maze. His path was blocked by a large clump of kudzu, and he turned right to get around it, then froze. Twenty feet in front of him, Dean and the ghost were squared off, next to a tall wall of kudzu. He watched as the ghost's sweeping arm connected with Dean's shotgun, knocking it out of his hands. "Drop, Dean!" Sam yelled and Dean hit the dirt, landing on his back as Sam fired.

Unfortunately, the ghost also ducked, dropping to its knees and the shot went high. Sam cursed and frantically dug in his pocket for the spare rounds and reloaded as fast as he could, his eyes on Dean and the ghost.

Sam gasped as he saw the ghost's hand wielding a knife and slashing towards Dean's stomach. Dean's right hand rose defensively to block the knife and he bit off a scream as the knife sliced along his forearm. Sam's shotgun discharged a second later, hitting the ghost dead-on and it vanished.

"Dean!" Sam ran over to his brother and dropped to his knees. He set the shotgun and the duffel on the ground. "Are you all right?"

Dean's left hand was clamped tightly around his right forearm, but Sam could see that blood marred the slashed jacket sleeve and trickled through Dean's fingers. "Been better."

Sam gently hauled Dean into a sitting position. He peeled Dean's jacket off of his right arm and grasped it with both of his hands, applying pressure on as much of the gash as he could. About a minute later, Sam pulled a bandana from his pocket, folded it into a triangle and tied his makeshift bandage over the shirt sleeve. "That's gonna require stitches. Keep pressure on your arm 'til we get to an ER in Vicksburg."

"Motel room," Dean corrected as Sam draped Dean's jacket over his right shoulder. "You can stitch this up, Sammy."

"Dean—"

"It's not that deep, had to go through the clothes first."

Sam didn't even want to think about how deep that knife would've cut into Dean's skin if his bare arm had been slashed. "You really should go to the ER. That knife could have all kinds of germs on it, and who knows what else."

"It's a ghost knife, Sam. I don't think the hospital's got anything for that. Look, you can throw some holy water on it, if it'll make you feel better, back at the room."

Sam heard the finality in Dean's voice. "Okay, let's get you back to the motel."

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Back in their motel room, Sam hustled Dean into the bathroom, quickly cleaning the long, narrow gash. He held Dean's arm over the sink and poured holy water over it, not happy as it bubbled and fizzed all along the deep, narrow gash. It took four more doses before the holy water ceased reacting to the ghost-inflicted wound.

"Whew, well that's over with." Sam unclamped his jaw. "Hang on." He slipped out of the bathroom, scrounged around Dean's duffel, and returned with Dean's pajama bottoms. "Here, put these on and get into bed, and I'll stitch it up there." As Dean started to protest, he added, "The light's better and I'll have more room to maneuver. Just do it, Dean."

Dean shooed him out, firmly closing the bathroom door.

Sam walked over to the table, where he'd hastily set the first aid kit, after digging it out of the Impala's trunk. Then he grabbed a chair and walked over to the beds. Placing the chair between the two beds, he opened the first aid kit and set it on his bed. He popped open the bottle of painkillers and frowned at the single pill. _Damn. Forgot to restock the Tylenol. _He removed the scarlet shade from the bolted-down lamp on the nightstand between their beds, and smiled as the room got brighter. Then he walked over to the room's entrance, stopping at the rack to remove Dad's silver flask—now Dean's—from his brother's brown leather jacket. _All set now, except for the patient. _

On cue, Dean walked out of the bathroom, Sam meeting him halfway. "Start drinking," he said, placing the flask in Dean's left hand. "For medicinal purposes; we're almost out of Tylenol." Then Sam disappeared into the bathroom to thoroughly wash his hands. He reappeared with two white towels and settled into the chair by Dean's bedside. Dean was sitting up in the bed closer to the door, just finishing a swig of whiskey. "Stop staring."

"I'm not staring." Sam said.

"Are, too."

"Am not," Sam defended. "I'm thinking."

Dean sighed and Sam could practically hear his brother's thought: _That's worse. _"About what?"

"The Civil War." Sam inclined his head towards a gallery-sized watercolor of the artist's conception of the Battle of Vicksburg on the opposite wall. "D'you ever wonder what it would have been like, if we'd been around back then?"

"The War Between the States," Dean corrected, then took another swig of whiskey. "Knowing us, we'd have ended up on opposite sides."

"What?"

"The Winchesters are from Southern stock, Sammy. I'd be here, defending home and family—and you'd take your ideals and your sense of justice and hightail it North, to the Union Army."

"I wouldn't," Sam started to protest, then reconsidered. _Isn't that what Dean thinks I did, when I left for Stanford? _"Maybe," he conceded softly, "but I'd be back, after the War, and you'd welcome me home with open arms." He watched as Dean took another left-handed swig from the flask.

"Sssuch a girl, Sssammy."

Sam noticed the slight slur in Dean's voice and let him take a few more gulps before gently taking the flask from his brother's hand. "Scrunch down and lie flat, we're ready to start."

He tucked Dean's left arm under the covers, then unfolded one of the towels along Dean's right side, gently placing his brother's injured right arm on top. Then he carefully bent the arm back at the elbow, exposing the deep cut that ran almost the length of Dean's forearm. Sam twisted in his chair, reaching for the medkit. He retrieved a pair of white gloves and stopped, staring at the cast that encased part of his thumb. _Kinda forgot about that. Oh, well, I'll have better finger dexterity without the glove, anyway. _He slipped on the left-hand glove, removed the needle from its sterile packaging and threaded it, trying to decide if it felt different from the last time he had to thread a needle, with two cast-free hands.

Sam turned back to his patient, needle in hand, and bent down to take Dean's forearm in his left hand. "This is gonna hurt," he warned quietly, then stuck the needle through skin, concentrating on making small, even stitches, refusing to count how many there would be. He started at the bottom, close to Dean's wrist, stitching his way towards the elbow.

After a few stitches, Dean groaned, muttering, "Gray ghost . . ."

"Shhh, Dean."

Dean's brow furrowed. ". . . wrong buttons . . ." he mumbled, shaking his head on the pillow, the movement causing his shoulders to twitch, too.

Sam stopped sewing, and tapped Dean's cheek with his left hand. "Dean, you've got to lie still, now."

"Sleeve . . ." Dean muttered, moving his head away from Sam's hand.

"Dean, lie still." Sam's voice was firm. "That's an order."

Dean's head stopped moving. "Yes, sir."

Sam sighed, somewhat regretting resorting to Dad's tactics to get Dean to settle down, but it had worked. He resumed stitching up Dean's forearm. When he was finished, he carefully knotted and inspected his handiwork, then covered it with a thick gauze bandage. "All done, bro."

Dean opened his eyes and gazed at his heavily bandaged arm. Then he tapped Sam's cast. "Twins," he said drowsily.

Sam smiled, "Get some sleep."

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A/N Hope you liked the hunt and are continuing to enjoy the story! Please let me know what you think happens next.


	3. Chapter 3 Ending with a Difference

Sam let Dean sleep in the next morning. Though more than once he felt Dean's forehead. If anything, it was cold, certainly no sign of infection, which was good. _Perfectly reasonable that coming in contact with a Civil War ghost would leave a guy chilled for awhile. Nothing to worry about. _He stared at Dean's slumbering form, something niggling at his mind. _What was Dean mumbling about last night? Gray ghost…wrong buttons…sleeve. Sounds like…a uniform?_

He retrieved the laptop from the table, bringing it back to his bed, where he could keep an eye on Dean while he surfed. Sam sat cross-legged on his bed, powered up the laptop and frowned at the blank Google search page in front of him. Resolutely, he typed in "American Civil War uniforms" and waited for the results. Twenty minutes later, he thought he'd figured it out. He'd have to get confirmation from Dean, once his brother woke up, but to use one of Dean's favorite words, "Yahtzee."

Dean finally stirred. "Sam?"

"'Bout time you woke up, Sleepyhead." Sam echoed Dean's teasing from the motel room in Indianapolis. He looked up from the laptop. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm fine." Dean answered automatically.

"Don't lie to your doctor," Sam said. "How's the arm?"

"It's okay," Dean started. Sam glared at him, lips tightening. "A little stiff and sore," he conceded, "and I've got a headache."

Sam nodded. "That'd be from the whiskey you drank."

"Painkiller," Dean corrected.

Sam rose from his bed and returned with the roll of garbage bags. "Now that you're up, you can take a shower. Then I'll get us some breakfast."

Dean reached for one of the bags. "Go get breakfast while I take a shower; we'll eat sooner."

"No." Sam took the plastic bag back from Dean and started wrapping his brother's bandaged forearm. "I'm not leaving 'til you're out of the shower."

Dean grumbled about Sam being a mother hen, but it didn't change Sam's mind. So Dean took a quick shower and even suffered through Sam helping him change into a fresh t-shirt. "Go, already," he griped, irritably.

"Okay, I'm going. And I'd better get some more bags, seeing as I'm wrapping for two, now."

Sam was back in under an hour, with assorted home-made kolaches and orange juice for breakfast, as well as more Tylenol and kitchen-size garbage bags. As they finished breakfast, he asked, "D'you remember what you said last night, about buttons?"

"No?"

"While I was stitching you up, you said gray ghost, wrong buttons, and something about a sleeve." Sam tried to jog Dean's memory.

"Wait a minute." Dean frowned, mulling over his encounter with the ghost. He'd noticed the buttons, and the sleeve's marking, as the knife was descending towards him. "You know, come to think of it, the buttons had eagles on them . . . _shield eagles_, I recognized them from a website. It was a Union uniform, Sammy!"

Sam nodded. "Which means we've been looking for our ghost in the wrong Army." He frowned. "I need to go back to Alcorn State's library and do more research. You oughta stay here and take it easy."

"Lockdown again," Dean grumbled.

"Rest this afternoon, or no grave-digging for you tonight." Sam suddenly felt like a parent, the feeling only augmented when Dean stuck his tongue out at him.

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Sam's research netted only one Union ghost: Dr. Michael Brown, who died at Windsor on May 8, 1863. His death had been a tragic accident; he'd been killed by a patient, a Confederate soldier whose leg was being amputated. The patient apparently hadn't received enough sedation, waking up screaming in the middle of the operation. He'd grabbed the scalpel from the doctor's hand and sliced savagely through the doctor's stomach before being subdued. The doctor had died of his injury a day later.

The prisoner had been in the same unit as Cpl. Caleb Browne, it was theorized that he might've lashed out at the doctor as revenge, since Browne had also been a patient of Dr. Brown's. Sam had dug deeper and unearthed an even stranger fact: Michael and Caleb had been brothers. Dr. Brown had apparently dropped the 'e' from his name when he joined the Union Army.

Discovering that Dr. Brown's body was buried in Windsor plantation's private cemetery on an Indian mound had been a bit anti-climactic after that. Now, Sam stood next to Dr. Brown's dug-up casket, and bent to open it. Dean was on guard on the moonlit ground behind him, shotgun ready to ward off Brown's ghost, if the good doctor chose to interfere.

Sam climbed out of the hole he'd just finished digging, then poured salt over the ancient bones. He waited while Dean poured gasoline over the remains, then lit a match and dropped it into the coffin. "I can't believe he killed his own brother; no wonder he's been haunting the place for decades."

"Think about it, Sammy. Caleb was an enemy soldier, in primitive medical times. The Union probably hoarded what drugs they had for their own wounded." Dean's eyes met Sam's over the flames from the burning coffin. "Michael's not haunting this place because he killed his brother, he's haunting it because he couldn't _save_ his brother. And that kind of guilt can drive a ghost—or a man—crazy, let alone violent."

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Sam surveyed the room they were getting ready to vacate. Everything was stowed in the Impala and they'd be leaving as soon as Dean came back from checking them out at the office. Sam scanned the bathroom and opened the dresser drawers, doing a last-time sweep of the room.

Dean walked in as Sam closed the last dresser drawer. "Here." He handed Sam a folded slip of paper.

Opening it up, Sam read an address in Spartanburg, South Carolina, written in Dad's hand. "What's this?"

"It's the last address Dad had for his parents: Ed and Amelia Winchester. It's a few years old, but old people don't move around very much, so it's probably still good." Dean's gaze shifted to stare at his bandaged arm, avoiding Sam's gaze. "I don't like keeping secrets from you, Sammy." He sighed. "Go and tell them whatever you need to about Dad's death, just leave me out of it."

"Thanks, Dean. C'n you drop me off at the bus station and I'll—"

"What is it with you and bus stations, dude? We're both going to Spartanburg. I'll find a pool hall and earn some money while you're—visiting. C'mon, let's hit the road."

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The address in Spartanburg turned out to be an upscale senior assisted-living complex. Sam walked into the central building labelled 'Office' and crossed a marble floor to the receptionist's desk. A middle-aged lady in a gray suit and perfectly coiffed iron-gray hair politely inquired, "May I help you, sir?"

"I'd like to see Mr. or Mrs. Winchester, please? My parents made me promise to drop by and visit them, if I was ever in Spartanburg. They used to be our neighbors."

"I'm sure Mrs. Winchester would love to visit with you. It'll take me a few minutes to locate her, if you wouldn't mind waiting in the morning room?" She indicated a set of double doors to the left of the lobby. "There's a coat closet to your immediate left and a beverage station. Please make yourself at home."

"Thank you." Sam had debated what to wear, teetering between making a good impression with his brown suit, or being comfortable in jeans. He opted for the suit. He straightened his striped tie—cardinal red and white, Stanford's colors—and took a seat at one of the many pastel-colored Victorian sofas arranged in conversational groupings around the room. Although there was seating capacity for at least thirty, the room was deserted except for Sam. The elegant marble-topped end table to his left had a stack of senior citizen and Southern Living magazines, and he idly picked up the top one and scanned the table of contents.

Fifteen minutes later, Sam heard the double doors open. He hastily rose to his feet as an elderly woman entered the room and walked over to join him. She wore a lilac pantsuit with a floral scarf looped around the neck, and had silver hair. "Marlene told me I had a visitor, so nice of you to co—" She broke off, up-tilted shrewd blue eyes peering sharply at his face. "Dean?"

"No, ma'am. I'm Sam Winchester."

"Little Sammy!?" Mrs. Winchester's breath quickened and her eyes took in Sam's six-foot plus frame. "Oh, my."

"Are you all right?" Sam asked, belatedly realizing that his grandmother would have to be in her mid-seventies, at least. Maybe showing up out of the blue hadn't been his best idea. "Perhaps we should have a seat?"

"That's a good idea, son. Please, sit down here beside me." They both settled on the Victorian loveseat. "Well, I-I don't quite know what to say." Then the old woman smiled, "But thank you for coming, it is so good to see you again, Sammy."

"I'm afraid I don't remember you, ma'am."

"No more you should, dear, you were only a baby the last time I saw you, not even eight months old." Sensing that her words were a conversation ender, she continued. "It would be too forward of me to ask you to call a perfect stranger Grandma, but could you please call me Amelia?"

"Yes, ma—Amelia."

"And I may call you Sammy?"

"Actually, I prefer Sam."

"Okay, Sam it is. I'm thrilled you're here, but is there a reason for this unexpected visit?"

"Yes, ma—Amelia, there is." Sam cleared his throat, then met Amelia's eyes and reached for her hand. "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you--about Dad. Dad was involved in an automobile accident, and he didn't make it. I'm sorry."

"Oh—oh my poor Johnny. I-I-" Tears started to trickle down Amelia's face. Sam grabbed a tissue from the box on the end table and she gratefully dabbed her eyes. "Wha-what happened?"

"The driver of a semi lost control of his rig and crashed into us. I was driving. It-it was so totally unexpected." _And it shouldn't have been. We'd seen plenty of possessed people in Jefferson City, and I knew damn well that the Yellow-Eyed Demon was loose. I should've been more alert, should've prevented that crash . . . _"I'm sorry."

"You were in the wreck, too? Were you hurt?"

"We were all injured, but Dean and I recovered. We thought Dad was getting better, too, but . . . there were complications, and he died." _Time of death: ten forty one._

Amelia placed a tentative hand on Sam's back. "Did—did I miss the funeral?' she asked, gently.

"Dad wanted to be cremated; it was a small private ceremony." Sam sighed. "The crash was two months ago; I only recently found your address. I'm sorry to be so late in telling you."

"Considering the circumstances, it was an unavoidable delay. Thank you for letting me know . . ." Her eyes misted. "Silly old me, I always hoped we'd reconcile . . . Two years ago, when my Ed passed away, Johnny sent me a sympathy card; no return address." She wiped her eyes again. "Oh, look at me. I didn't mean to get all weepy on you, Sam. I'm sorry. And I'm so glad that you came. At least one of my grandsons doesn't hate me."

"Dean only hates monsters." The words slipped out of Sam's mouth without conscious thought.

"And I suppose in his eyes, that's what I am," Amelia said sadly.

"I don't understand," Sam said, confused.

"You were too young to remember, Sam. It was a long time ago, back in Lawrence. Just before Christmas, less than two months after the fire. You all were living temporarily with Mike and Kate, Johnny's partner in the garage and his wife. Ed and I were living on the other side of town. We stopped in to visit at Mike's suggestion.

"Mike was worried about your Dad. He said he'd been drinking and behaving erratically. John had started missing work, and when Mike called him on it, your Dad practically told Mike to take his half of the garage, too—he didn't want it.

"So, Ed and I stopped by. I asked John to come stay with us for the holidays. Said I'd love having youngsters around the house again, and it'd give Johnny a chance to relax and unwind. Your father thanked me for the offer, but refused. He said maybe he'd come visit later in the year.

"I pushed him a little harder, told him that I knew he was going through a very difficult time, but he didn't need to do it alone. Ed and I were there to help. And he needed to consider what was best for you boys. That he was putting too much responsibility on Dean's shoulders. No matter how much Dean loved you, Sam, he wasn't old enough to take care of a baby. I flat-out told John that I knew he was drinking more than he should be, and skipping work. Then I reiterated my offer for him to come home for the holidays; I said that I could look after you and Dean while John tried to put his life back together, maybe sought some therapy. A doctor I knew could get Johnny into a good, solid program, and he'd only be gone for a month.

"Then Dean burst into the room, screaming. We didn't realize it, but he'd been in the next room and he heard every word I'd said. He ran into John's arms and cried over and over, 'No, Daddy! Don't leave! Don't go away like Mommy did! Please!'

"I was taken aback, because when I saw Dean at Thanksgiving, he hadn't spoken two words the whole long weekend. It took Johnny a good fifteen minutes to calm Dean down, but he finally fell asleep in his daddy's lap. Johnny said he'd talk to me later and Ed and I left.

"The next day, Johnny was gone. He'd packed up you and Dean, and whatever belongings he had, and drove off before sunrise." Amelia paused. "I talked to the police, but they couldn't do anything. John was your father, and he hadn't broken any laws just by leaving town with you unexpectedly. The cops said that the only way they could conduct a search would be if there was an active case involved, like if I considered John a suspect in the fire at your house."

Sam's eyes widened.

"I knew John had nothing to do with that fire, and I told the police that, in the strongest words possible. But I still worried about all of you, and I heard nothing from Johnny. I dithered about it, then hired a private detective after Christmas, to try to track my son down. But the detective couldn't find hide nor hair of you, and eventually, I told him to stop looking.

"Five years later, Ed and I moved back to South Carolina, where we both have family. Not a day went by that I didn't think about Johnny and you boys, and pray that you were all right. I'm so glad that you and Dean are all right. And I pray that Johnny's finally at peace, with Mary."

Sam felt his own eyes beginning to tear, and he sought to change the topic of conversation. "Ah, Amelia, Dad hardly ever mentioned his childhood. Could you tell me what he was like, as a kid?"

Amelia stared off into space for a moment, then a slight smile creased her face. "Your father was an only child, but he had a passle of cousins. And when they got together, all hell broke loose. Why, I remember one time . . ."

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Sam opened the door to the Impala and slid into the passenger seat, Dean silently watching him. "Thanks for dropping me off," Sam said. "It was nice, visiting one of our relatives." _Not family—there is a difference. I get that now. _"So, did you have a good day at the office?"

"Oh yes." Dean smirked. "Very productive." He started the car and they drove down the complex's long, winding driveway. "And the food was terrific. I hope you brought your appetite, Sammy, 'cause I'm about to introduce you to the wonders of Southern cooking, specifically South Carolina pork barbeque!"

A/N Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed the story, and I'm really wondering what you think of Amelia.


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